The Long Journey to Immortality

"But now, we just let the magic weapon operate naturally, and we're lucky if we can get 120 or 130 drops of spiritual liquid a month."

"As far as I know, the monthly production of spiritual liquid has not increased significantly in the past three or four thousand years, obviously..." Qingxu Daoist gave a very conservative answer, "It is obvious that no cultivator in the sect has successfully communicated with this treasure in recent years."

The basis for Qingxu Daoren's judgment was not solid, but it made some sense.

"This month, I can go and look up information and study the artifact spirit," Han Lu thought to herself. "Next month, when I come here alone, I can try to see if I have any chance to talk to the artifact spirit."

Although she had never encountered a spirit artifact and lacked knowledge in this area, it did not prevent Han Lu from indulging in some daydreams and wondering if she had any affinity with such a treasure.

Seeing Han Lu deep in thought, Qingxu Daoist was able to guess what Han Lu was thinking.

He joked, "Han Lu, if you really have such an opportunity to communicate with the spirit of the artifact, you should have a good talk with him and ask him to produce more spiritual liquid every month to benefit the thousands of disciples of the sect."

Hearing this, Han Lu smiled and replied, "That's a must."

A simple change in address transformed the atmosphere of their conversation in this secluded and serious setting.

As they opened the stone gate to leave, they chatted casually. The two cultivators, who had known each other for nearly seventy years, disregarded the difference in their sect positions and talked about some private and trivial matters as friends.

They chatted aimlessly, talking about everything.

Han Lu inquired about the situation of the late-stage Golden Core elders in the Zhengyi Sect.

Qingxu Daoist was curious about the rights and wrongs of the East Sea and the Wilderness in recent years.

Han Lu and Qingxu Daoist discussed the catastrophe that would occur a thousand years later.

Qingxu Daoist told Han Lu about the good news that ten years ago, an elder finally succeeded in advancing to the Nascent Soul realm.

Of course, Qingxu Daoist, who had once fantasized about being able to communicate with the spirit of the artifact, also shared the information he had found about the spirit with Han Lu.

However, it was all just superficial, directional information, simply helping Han Lu to find her way.

More specific details will require Han Lu to put in more effort to obtain.

After leaving the bamboo forest, accompanied by Daoist Qingxu, Han Lu found the miraculous spirit mushroom in the herb garden with the spiritual liquid.

This was the first time Han Lu had handled this matter, but Lingzhi Miaoren, who managed the herb garden, was already used to it and was extremely skilled at it.

Under the watchful eyes of Han Lu and Qingxu Daoren, Lingzhi Miaoren diluted the spiritual liquid into various proportions of "nutrient solution" to meet the growth needs of various spiritual plants in the herb garden.

Finally, as was customary, he left Han Lu five drops of spiritual liquid as payment.

Han Lu accepted it without hesitation.

Chapter 1062 Harmony, Artifact Spirit

The fact that Han Lu was entrusted with the important task of collecting spiritual liquid naturally indicates that she has entered the innermost circle of the Zhengyi Sect.

The expert in charge of the medicinal herb garden naturally understood this.

"It's only been a month since we last met, so I must offer my congratulations to Elder Zhenfeng." With Daoist Qingxu still standing to the side, Lingzhi Miaoren, busy diluting the spiritual liquid, naturally wouldn't speak too explicitly.

However, Han Lu easily understood this fellow disciple with whom she had met twice before, and smiled, "I hope Lingzhi Miaoren will take good care of me for the next six months."

"I hope you will take good care of me, Fairy Zhenfeng." Noticing the change in how Han Lu addressed him, Lingzhi Miaoren, who would be dealing with Han Lu several more times on official business, naturally changed his way of addressing her as well, happy to get closer to Han Lu.

"Since Fairy Zhenfeng has obtained this lucrative job that allows her to earn spiritual liquid, then I will indulge in a few pretentious words and explain the more detailed methods for using this spiritual liquid."

In the beginning, in order to help the Thousand-Petaled Golden Lotus grow, the Spiritual Herb Master naturally did not pass on all his skills to Han Lu.

Now, in order to build a closer relationship, Lingzhi Miaoren is naturally willing to teach Han Lu these skills in exchange for a favor.

With another way to obtain spiritual liquid, Han Lu naturally wanted to make full use of this magical and rare resource and not waste its unique characteristics.

So, in the daily process of preparing the spiritual liquid, Lingzhi Miaoren explained his operation to Han Lu while doing his work, and shared the appropriate ratio of spiritual liquid for cultivating various spiritual plants.

During this process, Han Lu noticed that before diluting the spiritual liquid, Lingzhi Miaoren had to weigh it on a small scale with counting capabilities before it could be mixed with clean water.

This is to ensure that the proportions of the prepared elixir are correct.

Secondly, it was to prevent the two elders who were in charge of this matter from enriching themselves, colluding with each other, and embezzling the spiritual liquid.

After all, although the spiritual liquid is scarce, there are still 120 to 130 drops a month.

It's easy to embezzle a little bit.

However, with just this small scale and a small restriction located in the Daotianping Cave, it is possible to monitor the spiritual liquid by simply comparing the readings of the spiritual liquid in the two restrictions.

Of course, this trick only works against honest people, not scoundrels.

More importantly, they focused on selecting which two elders would handle the matter.

Eliminating corruption at its source is the only way to solve the problem once and for all.

Clearly, both Han Lu and Lingzhi Miaoren are elders highly valued by the management of the Zhengyi Sect, which is why they were entrusted with such responsibilities.

Master Qingxu watched from the side without saying a word, quite satisfied with the two men's work.

Soon, the 124 drops of spiritual liquid were prepared into ten different diluted spiritual liquids for different purposes.

This spiritual liquid will be used on various spiritual plants in the medicine garden, transforming resources into assets and providing the Zhengyi Sect with the fundamental motivation to continue moving forward.

After observing the two men complete their work, Qingxu Daoren voluntarily left to continue his busy work as the head of the Zhengyi Sect.

Since Han Lu had no other trivial matters to attend to, she decided to continue participating in the management of the medicinal garden with Lingzhi Miaoren, trying to learn more skills in tending to spiritual plants, so that she wouldn't be clueless when she needed to use them in the future.

After learning from the herb master Lingzhi for almost an hour and recognizing several rare spiritual plants, Han Lu felt she had gained a lot before leaving the herb garden.

The next day, Han Lu, relying on her status as an elder of the Zhengyi Sect, went to the library of the Five Elements Mountain Academy and, following the guidance of Daoist Qingxu the day before, tried to find some information about the spirit of the artifact.

The Zhengyi sect has a vast collection of books, including countless books on cultivation and Taoist practices.

However, there are very few books that mention the concept of spirit artifacts.

After all, for most cultivators who live and practice in the mortal realm, the concept of a spirit artifact is something they have only heard of in legends.

Many have heard of it, but few have actually seen it, and even fewer cultivators have had any real contact with the spirit of the artifact.

Not to mention cultivators who have actually possessed a magical artifact containing a spirit.

With Han Lu's knowledge, she had only heard the first legend about the artifact spirit from Qingxu Daoist the day before.

If she were to write a passage about the spirit of the artifact, she could only include the story about the patriarch.

It's all superficial; even if a cultivator with similar thoughts to Han Lu saw it, they wouldn't be able to gain any more useful information from it.

In this situation, it was fortunate that when Qingxu Daoist became the sect leader, he saw the Stealing Heaven Bottle for the first time and, after hearing the story about the spirit of the artifact, he spent some time studying it.

With some guidance and help from Qingxu Daoren, Han Lu still spent about fifteen minutes successfully finding three books on the bookshelf as a breakthrough for her research.

The three books are all different.

A book, which has been made into a jade tablet for easy reading, is, according to Qingxu Daoren, a memoir left by an elder of the Zhengyi Sect who had once come into contact with the spirit of another magical artifact.

The other two books are still in the form of books, which means that some special information would lose its true meaning if they were converted into jade tablets for preservation, hence this arrangement.

This book is a commentary and evaluation of many famous magical treasures in the world by a master craftsman.

The other book is similar to the first, but it is a collection of miscellaneous writings left by a monk, many of which involve artifact spirits.

Han Lu didn't bother with any particular order among the three books. She first grabbed the jade tablet and read it quickly, trying to find the secret to communicating with the spirit that might exist inside the Stealing Heaven Bottle.

The memoir was left by an elder of the Zhengyi Sect who successfully ascended to the spirit world five thousand years ago.

This elder who stole the title "Venerable Shangtian" was not only exceptionally talented, but also incredibly fortunate.

At the age of 138, he successfully advanced to the late stage of the Golden Core realm, becoming a pillar of the sect.

At the age of two hundred, he had made thorough preparations to attempt to transcend the tribulation and advance to the Nascent Soul Realm.

During the tribulation, affected by the heavenly tribulation, Elder Shangtian's spiritual sword inexplicably gained sentience and developed a weapon spirit.

That spirit sword was a first-grade spirit weapon. After it developed a spirit, it even jumped to a higher grade and became a magic treasure of the spirit treasure level.

It was because of this incident that Qingxu Daoist recommended his memoirs to Han Lu for reading.

The spirit of the artifact arrived out of nowhere, and Elder Shangtian's memoirs naturally recorded more of his stories about his interactions with the spirit.

In Elder Shangtian's description, the spirit of his sword was like a fifteen or sixteen-year-old youth, full of vigor and unstoppable.

This personality is exactly the same as it was when he was young.

Naturally, although Elder Shangtian could not communicate with the spirit of the artifact, he still enjoyed the time together quite a bit.

When he finally ascended, because this spirit sword was not a supreme treasure-level magic weapon, it was not subject to the laws of heaven and earth at the time of ascension.

Elder Shangtian then successfully took her to the Spirit Realm, where she continued to stay by his side.

Chapter 1063 Lessons from Failure, Three Magic Weapons

In Elder Shangtian's memoir, what interested Han Lu the most was a story about Elder Shangtian and the Stealing Heaven Bottle.

As the most promising elder in the sect, Elder Shangtian naturally received the same treatment as Han Lu, and was given the opportunity to collect the spirit liquid from the Heaven-Stealing Bottle early on.

Similarly, like every elder of the Zhengyi Sect who knew the legend of the Stealing Heaven Bottle, Elder Shangtian had the idea of ​​awakening the spirit of the bottle the moment he saw it.

Of course, when he was still a Golden Core cultivator, Elder Shangtian tried several times but failed, and the process was more like a headless fly.

He even foolishly shouted the words "Stealing the Heavenly Bottle" for half an hour in that cave.

After advancing to the Nascent Soul Realm and obtaining the spirit sword's spirit, Elder Shangtian made a second attempt.

This time, just looking at the method made it much more reliable than the first time.

Elder Shangtian chose to have the spirit within his sword act as a "representative" in an attempt to communicate with the Stealing Heaven Bottle.

Of course, the result was still not satisfactory.

Not only did they fail to summon the spirit of the Heaven-Stealing Bottle, they also failed to ascertain whether the bottle even contained any spirit at all.

It can be said that Elder Shangtian's two attempts were complete failures, and the only lesson Han Lu could learn from them was the advice: "Don't be foolish and shout at the Stealing Heaven Bottle."

"What a pity," Han Lu put down the jade pendant and sighed, "If it contained the spirit's own account, it might have been able to provide me with some additional help."

The spirit born from the heavenly tribulation is actually a newborn child who doesn't even understand his own timeline, so how could he possibly explain "great principles"?

Returning the jade tablet she had just finished reading to its original place, Han Lu picked up the book "Spiritual Treasure Commentary" written by the weapon-refining master, trying to find some clues about weapon spirits in this not-too-thick book.

Compared to Elder Shangtian, Xuanjing, a weapon-refining master whose cultivation was only at the early stage of the Golden Core realm, was much closer to the era in which Han Lu lived.

This book was written 250 years ago. If you calculate carefully, the weapon-refining master named Xuanjing should still be alive, even though his lifespan is not long.

In this book, "Reviews of Spiritual Treasures," Xuanjing, relying on his personal connections, introduces and reviews twenty-seven magical treasures that are at least at the level of spiritual treasures.